Why innovation doesn’t happen in a vacuum

Most breakthrough innovations happen at the edges or at the intersections of various disciplines.

Yep. At least half of that statement goes hand in hand with the cross-pollination I have talked about in previous posts and presentations. Cross-pollination usually happens when two worker bees with completely different backgrounds and experiences meet, learn from each other, and start applying the new insights they have learned from each other to improve the way they work. Cross pollination doesn’t just introduce new ideas and methodologies into otherwise rigid systems, they transform them. In this transformation is the catalyst of any organization’s evolution.

Take this simple process as an example:

Same methodology + same methodology + same methodology + same methodology = same methodology.

This type of closed model creates no opportunity for innovation. Companies who get stuck in this type of monotheistic mentality remain the same year after year. The world around them changes, evolves, moves on, but they trudge along. Their occasional innovation play involves acquiring smaller companies with once innovative products, but their timing usually misses the mark. Symptoms: Eroding market share, eroding margins, difficulty in recruiting and retaining top talent, and growth by acquisitions rather than market penetration. Nothing wrong with that model, but it just isn’t the best way to go about building a truly solid brand in any industry.

Bring a design engineer from the automotive industry and ask him to work with a mobile phone designer and watch what happens to mobile phone designs within six months. Also watch what happens to dashboard designs when the automotive designer goes back to his car factory.

Pair a brand planner from the fashion world and a marketing honcho from the IT world (yes, they do exist) and watch how their cross-pollination of ideas and insights transforms the way they approach their work.

Cross-pollination gets companies and individuals out of their routines. It expands their horizons. It opens new doors, new possibilities, new directions for companies willing to embrace proactive change – the kind of change that yields results, not only on Wall Street, but also in the hearts and minds of the people who will either embrace their brands’ fresh new energy, or eventually reject their inability to remain relevant in an increasingly commoditized and fickle world.

I have heard it said that going through the same motions over and over again and expecting a different result every time (or every quarter, as it were) is the definition of madness. Fair enough. The question that begs asking then is: How is this different from companies with repetitive strategy syndrome expecting improvements in market share, revenue growth, brand relevance and customer loyalty?

Most breakthrough innovations happen at the edges or at the intersections of various disciplines.

Fact: People outside of your industry have the solution to the problem you can’t figure out how to fix.

Fact: You have the solution to the problem that someone in a completely different industry is struggling with.

Fact: Without cross-pollination of some sort, neither problem is likely to be solved anytime soon, especially not by you.

Without cross-pollination of ideas, innovation takes longer, or doesn’t happen at all. Innovation isn’t about inventing the wheel out of divine inspiration; innovation is about finding the principle of the wheel outside of your normal environment, and applying the insight gained from this somewhat random experience to addressing the problem at hand.

Neither cross-pollination of ideas nor innovation ever happen in a vacuum. Companies which actively foster cultures of innovation will always see tremendous growth. Companies which instead favor cultures of assimilation will continue to churn and puff and trudge along until their bloated carcasses are pushed out of the way by yesterday’s “little guys.” It’s just the way of the world. Evolution is inevitable. Evolution doesn’t care how relevant you were yesterday. Evolution happens because some entities adapt to change while others prefer to exist in a state of denial, thinking that what has worked for the last ten, twenty or thirty years will continue to work ten years down the road.

Jack Spade once said “Never believe anything you have done is successful.” Solid advice if you ask me.

Inject some cultural diversity into your workforce: Recruit creatively, across various disciplines and industries. Internally, create multi-discipline work groups to work on special projects or design concepts. Revamp your customer service. Question the effectiveness of your packaging or messaging or web design. Engage with your customers. Embrace and foster their communities. Create better means of listening to what they needs are, and find renewed purpose in delivering on their requests. Leverage diversity in every layer of your organization to do this. Whatever needs to be changed, change, especially if that change is difficult. Rip complacency and old habits to shreds, and upgrade every aspect of whatever methodology or system you have pounded into a stalled routine over the course of the last five to ten years.